Bearding the emails in their den
11 Jun 2022 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneIn order to steel myself to compose email to the unemployment bureau, because I'm afraid of emails and also because everything that can go wrong with the employment bureau often does, I had to take a benzo on Tuesday. At the time, I was like, this is ridiculous, surely I don't have to be this stoned to write an email? Like I DID manage to write the email, but afterwards I just felt silly and annoyed at the feeling.
Unfortunately it turned out that the (new caseworker??) I was contacting appears to be unusually good at her job, which meant she replied the very next day. That was the day we were expecting the family of 6 potential housemates to visit and see the MIL flat, and I spent it mostly trying to tidy various things and could spare only a little anxiety for the response. But in general, the quick turnaround was just terrible because I need an average of 3 days to recover from each interaction of that kind. After we came to an agreement with the two Ukrainian women, I forbid myself to reload social media accounts again (Dreamwidth doesn't count, but I only checked it on my phone - it only applies to the endless scrolling type that always add new content whenever you reload, so Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc) to avoid sidetracking until the emails were done.
The result of this was that in addition to reading a bunch of Top Gun fanfic in the past two days, I also folded a lot of laundry and mostly reorganized/cleaned our closet. Today I actually tried to take a half benzo instead, but discovered it never got past mildly chill - it wasn't strong enough to allow me to touch emails. When I thought about tackling them I thought OH NO NOPE NOPE NOPE still, instead of the necessary dissociated "oh that's a scary thing over there on the other end of this balloon string from me!"
So after dinner I complained about this issue to Wax and, the first one having evidently left my system by then (they do have quite a short half-life), took a whole one so that I would be able to Cope. I had to read two brief, friendly emails offering an appointment several weeks in the future at a place already familiar to me (and less than 2 blocks from home), and all I had to do was fire off a confirmation like Thanks, see you there! You might say this was anticlimactic, but in fact the quick response already led me to conjecture that the content would be more than usually helpful and probably positive, but knowing that didn't matter at all to the anxiety. Isn't that great?
Earlier today Wax and I rigged up a curtain track for the long-belated door-curtains of our newly-cleaned closet. I have to sew a few seams to render the funky 70s duvet cover into curtains, once I am totally sober again. We're also jazzed to have all our hard work appreciated, as Wax's favorite aunt will be here next weekend, along with a cousin and his baby. We also can invite my friend Ella back, and the ten-years-younger-than-us-goth-cat-breeder lesbians whom we got Tristana from, so they can see her thriving and basking in the adoration of her uncle Snookums.
Speaking of closets, though... we have had a problem with clothes moths eating up our woolens since last winter. In closet cleaning I threw out a couple of other old sweaters that won't be too sorely missed, but apparently we need to air out everything else, and also possibly freeze all of it, and ALSO probably wash the whole closet with vinegar water and then strew it with aromatic herbs or cedar chips? Or maybe moth traps replace some of this (but which part?) We're just desperately lucky they haven't gotten any of my favorite sweaters yet. But that process all sounds so dismayingly multi-step that, at least now while still under the influence, it sounds impossible to achieve.
Unfortunately it turned out that the (new caseworker??) I was contacting appears to be unusually good at her job, which meant she replied the very next day. That was the day we were expecting the family of 6 potential housemates to visit and see the MIL flat, and I spent it mostly trying to tidy various things and could spare only a little anxiety for the response. But in general, the quick turnaround was just terrible because I need an average of 3 days to recover from each interaction of that kind. After we came to an agreement with the two Ukrainian women, I forbid myself to reload social media accounts again (Dreamwidth doesn't count, but I only checked it on my phone - it only applies to the endless scrolling type that always add new content whenever you reload, so Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc) to avoid sidetracking until the emails were done.
The result of this was that in addition to reading a bunch of Top Gun fanfic in the past two days, I also folded a lot of laundry and mostly reorganized/cleaned our closet. Today I actually tried to take a half benzo instead, but discovered it never got past mildly chill - it wasn't strong enough to allow me to touch emails. When I thought about tackling them I thought OH NO NOPE NOPE NOPE still, instead of the necessary dissociated "oh that's a scary thing over there on the other end of this balloon string from me!"
So after dinner I complained about this issue to Wax and, the first one having evidently left my system by then (they do have quite a short half-life), took a whole one so that I would be able to Cope. I had to read two brief, friendly emails offering an appointment several weeks in the future at a place already familiar to me (and less than 2 blocks from home), and all I had to do was fire off a confirmation like Thanks, see you there! You might say this was anticlimactic, but in fact the quick response already led me to conjecture that the content would be more than usually helpful and probably positive, but knowing that didn't matter at all to the anxiety. Isn't that great?
Earlier today Wax and I rigged up a curtain track for the long-belated door-curtains of our newly-cleaned closet. I have to sew a few seams to render the funky 70s duvet cover into curtains, once I am totally sober again. We're also jazzed to have all our hard work appreciated, as Wax's favorite aunt will be here next weekend, along with a cousin and his baby. We also can invite my friend Ella back, and the ten-years-younger-than-us-goth-cat-breeder lesbians whom we got Tristana from, so they can see her thriving and basking in the adoration of her uncle Snookums.
Speaking of closets, though... we have had a problem with clothes moths eating up our woolens since last winter. In closet cleaning I threw out a couple of other old sweaters that won't be too sorely missed, but apparently we need to air out everything else, and also possibly freeze all of it, and ALSO probably wash the whole closet with vinegar water and then strew it with aromatic herbs or cedar chips? Or maybe moth traps replace some of this (but which part?) We're just desperately lucky they haven't gotten any of my favorite sweaters yet. But that process all sounds so dismayingly multi-step that, at least now while still under the influence, it sounds impossible to achieve.
(no subject)
Date: 11 Jun 2022 09:43 pm (UTC)RELATING TO THIS VERY MUCH.